


Adventures of Talking To Dead People (and Vaping)

by truewolf



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: I gave Tucker a Grandmother, Passing On, but she died immediately off camera oops, in my head there's a difference between ghosts and spirits, just go with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 22:28:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20767958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truewolf/pseuds/truewolf
Summary: When the regular ghosts came through the portal, Danny’s ghost sense went off as per usual. However, every once in a while instead of the vibrant blue puff of cold air rushing out of his lungs, it was like it only wanted to work halfway - less forceful, and replacing the blue was an opaque, white mist.ORTucker suffers a personal loss, everyone thinks Danny is vaping, and a spirit gets some extra help to move on.





	Adventures of Talking To Dead People (and Vaping)

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: In my head, there's a difference between ghosts and spirits. Ghosts live in the GZ, and are stuck on this dimension. Spirits, however, are the souls of the recently passed who are supposed to move on from this world but has baggage that prevents them from doing so. They aren't visible to humans, and hardly have enough energy to interact with ghosts, and do not possess the same powers. They can fly, and are pretty much intangible all the time, but that's about it.

Tucker was off. Even stranger, Danny couldn’t figure out _why._

He had a bad feeling since Sunday, when Tucker didn’t show online to their nightly ritual of playing _Doom,_ nor would he respond to any texts from either Sam or Danny. He thought it was strange, but wrote it off for Tucker going to bed earlier than usual. He had a bad habit of falling asleep, face-down in a book, and Danny knows how sleep deprived they’ve all been from their nightly excursions.

It was when Tucker didn’t show up at school the next day when Danny started to get concerned. It wasn’t like Tucker didn’t miss school. In fact, he ranked second in most days missed in their school’s attendance, and the person who ranked in first was Danny - and he had one of the worst attendance records the schools ever seen.

No, it was the silence that was unnerving. Whenever Tucker got excused he would always call to rub it in Danny and Sam’s faces, or at the very least send a text saying he felt like he was dying and questioned how the two would ever survive a day without him. However, there was absolutely no melodramatic monologue given, no response to any texts or calls.

Sam was feeling as uneasy as Danny. “Do you think he lost his PDA?”

Danny shook his head. He scoured the hallways for any sign of his best friend, but there was nothing. “I doubt it. That thing is his baby. Plus, I’d be damned if he didn’t get a backup after what happened with Skulker.”

Sam sighed, tucking a piece of her short black hair behind her ear. “I know, I figured that much too. I’m just...Tucker never does this, you know? It’s concerning, to say the least.”

“I’m worried too.” Danny spared another glance at his phone. The only thing that greeted him back was the fact that Sam and him were about to be late to first period. He tried to muster a smile that could pass as reassuring. “I’ll stop by his house tonight.”

Danny flew by Tucker’s house before and after patrol but each trip revealed no lights on inside and a vacant driveway. Even a quick peek in Tucker’s room revealed nothing out of the ordinary.  
Danny pulled his head out of his wall, returning to tangibility once again.

“Dammit, Tucker.” Danny muttered under his breath, shaking his head to himself. After a quick trip around (and in) his house again, the only strange thing he found was a few gift baskets outside the front door. Feeling lost and defeated, Danny started the flight back home.

The entire trip, Danny felt uneasy. It was like...someone, or _something_ was watching him. Danny made sure his windows were completely closed as the familiar white rings surrounded him.

The next day when arriving at school, Sam was by Tucker’s locker, but still no sign of Tucker.

“Did you find anything out of the ordinary? Even for Tucker?” Sam nervously bit her lip.

Danny solemnly shook his head. “Nothing. I stopped by twice - same messy room, nothing in his house seemed to touch, no sign of his PDA. Just a lot of baskets.”

Sam arched an unimpressed eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘baskets?’ Did you see a white stork and a baby too?”

With a roll of his eyes, Danny dryly responded, “No, there was baskets and some food delivered to the front door. They all had comfort items in it or something, I don’t know. Maybe his parents have an obsession with fuzzy socks we don’t know about?”

It seemed like something clicked for Sam, though. She stood up completely straight, face pallid and stark. “Danny,” she softly spoke, “I think that someone has di-”

“Hey guys.”

The two friends whipped around to see a familiar boy with a red beret walking towards them. He kept his eyes downward. Or really, as Danny noticed, anywhere but them.

“Tucker! Where the hell were you?”

When Tucker spared a glance up when reaching for his locker, puffy eyes and a blank stare was all Danny got in return. Before Danny could interrogate him further, Tucker mumbled out, “Sorry for missing your calls”, and then swiftly turned to leave to his first period. Tucker rushed past Sam as she made a beeline for him, Danny distantly hearing a lack of response to Sam’s calls. 

Sam walked up next to Danny, looking as hopeless as he felt. She bit her lip as she leaned one shoulder on a locker, lost in her thoughts. “Well, that went crappily."

When lunchtime came around, Tucker's entire lunch went untouched - including his fried chicken. Danny could not leave the elephant unnoticed any longer.

“Okay, seriously dude - what’s going on?”

Tucker looked like he was expecting this, sighing and putting his unused fork down. “Nothing, okay? I’m fine.”

Before Danny could start to unravel what bullshit _that_ was, Sam beat him to it. “Tucker. Star walked past you twice and you didn’t even hit on her, much less spare a passing glance. She even looked concerned about you. We’re...concerned about you.”

“I…”

“You scared us. If something happened, or, or we did something and you needed space-”

“No Sam, that’s not it-”

“And, you completely ghosted Sam and I!” When Tucker made no comment on the irony that was, Danny continued on. “We just needed to know if you were safe, I still don’t know-”

“Listen!” Tucker stopped both of their upcoming rants in their tracks, raising his voice to a speaking level for the first time that day. “I’m sorry, I really am, okay?” “It’s just…”, Tucker sighed, then started again, “ It’s my Mamaw. She had, uh, passed away Sunday night. It was unexpected.”

Danny would see his Mamaw on occasion. Statistically, with the amount of time spent at Tucker’s house, Danny’s has been able to meet his entire extended family. Admittedly he didn’t know her immensely well, seeing her less often as they got older, but he remembered the aura of her presence - sneaked warm cookies and a hearty laugh, a glint of mischief in her dark brown eyes. She had never treated them like they were ignorant just because they were kids, and always brought a smile to their faces.

Danny frowned, eyebrows furrowed as guilt rise within him. “Tuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push-”

Tucker quickly shut the apology off with a shake of his head. “No no, its’ okay. It’s not like I didn’t want to tell you guys, it’s just…” He sighed.

“Saying it out loud actually makes it feel real, you know? It’s like I can pretend nothing happened, but as soon as you say it out loud, you have to acknowledge it.”

“Tucker,” Sam spoke surprisingly gently, “If anyone were to understand it, it’s us.” She spared a quick but not unnoticeable glance at Danny. _“Especially_ us.”

“I know,” Tucker uttered honestly with a small nod of his head. “I know.”

The rest of the lunch period felt like Clockwork slowed down time to a snail's pace.

\--------

The past week had been strange for Danny, and that’s even by his standards. The usual ghosts had been coming in and out of the portal at their usual rate and he wasn’t doing any better or worse in his classes (which at this point, was and honest to god win for him). Other than Tucker still being a bit moody and in the grieving process, he seemed to be a little bit more like himself with every passing day. Everything seemed relatively okay.

Well, everything except his stupid ghost sense.

When the regular ghosts came through the portal, Danny’s ghost sense went off as per usual. However, every once in a while instead of the vibrant blue puff of cold air rushing out of his lungs, it was like it only wanted to work halfway - less forceful, and replacing the blue was an opaque white mist. If it wasn’t September, it could have passed for his breath on a chilly day.

Even stranger, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what would trigger it. During lunch, English, and annual trips to the nasty burger, it never seemed to discriminate. Actually, it seemed to prefer to go off most often in social settings, especially with Tucker and Sam. Despite being teased about it at first, it was starting to concern them too.

That Saturday, Danny and Tucker had a ‘Bro’s Day’, but not because they didn’t want to include Sam - no, she was too busy hating her life as she helped her parents with a party for their wealthy friends. After a day full of video games, movies, and a great, non-nutritious meal at The Nasty Burger, they found themselves discussing the new, uh, _quirk,_ while taking the shortcut back to their homes through the local park.

“So do you think that the ghosts have been weaker? Or that you’ve been taking harder hits?” 

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, kicking a rock down the road. “That’s just it, though,” he sighed, “is that it stays the same as it always does with the normal ghosts that come from the ghost zone.”

Tucker absentmindedly scratched at the top of his beret. “So maybe…it’s not something from the ghost zone? Like it came from Earth, or another dimension or something?”

“God, I hope not. I can barely deal with the ghost zone and normal problems with this world.”

Tucker loosely slung an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “Don’t worry about it too much,” he reassured, we’ll figure it out.” Tucker let out a snort. “Actually, everyone now thinks you’re vaping.”

Danny’s eyebrows shot up, turning to see if Tucker was messing with him or not. “Seriously?!”

“Yeah! If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought the same. It comes out in a weird puff of smoke almost-”

Tucker was interrupted by the new ghost sense going off, this time the ethereal mist looking stronger than ever before. If there were any local passerby it would appear that Danny had a built-in fog machine in his mouth. 

“Yeah, like that.” Tucker deadpanned.

A quick glance around, a mumbled _shit!_ and a flash of white light later, Danny sprung off the ground, thermos aimed and ready to suck in whatever nuisance that has been following him all week. Danny was half expecting to find a new incarnation of the box ghost. What he wasn't expecting, however, was a familiar and strong voice that would shatter his brain for a second.  
“I’d reprimand you two on your language, but I suppose I wasn’t the best role model for that, eh?”

Floating ten feet in front of Danny was a woman who appeared to be in her mid-eighties, grey, wildly curly hair peeking out from a colorful turban, a familiar warm smile gracing her face with a twinkle in her eyes to rival the stars peaking out in the sky behind her.

He didn’t need the visual to know who this was. Danny would know that voice from anywhere.

Mrs. Foley; more or less, in the flesh.

Distantly, the still functioning parts of Danny’s brain figured that she wasn’t a ghost, not really; while she definitely was not part of the living, unless everyone is able to up and float,  
parts of her appearance didn’t really change from when she was alive. Unlike Danny’s ghost form, all of her earthly colors stayed the same, and besides being a bit, uh, translucent than usual, her copper skin and bright, cherry red dress was the same as it always was, albeit a bit dull.

“What...How-?”

The woman chuckled. “I thought out of all the people in the world, you’d know that spirits are very much possible Phantom. Or should I say Fenton?”

Danny stuttered. “I, uh…wait, have you been following me all week? Because as cool as you are Mrs. Foley, I would rather have you visited me so the school doesn’t think I’m a smoker. And you know - personal space, all that jazz. ” Danny finished his nervous ramble with a very enthusiastic pair of jazz hands.

The woman just arched an eyebrow, letting out a small chuckle. “Goodness, no. Trust me, there’s only so much Doom I can watch - and I hit my limit when I was alive.”

Despite himself, Danny gave a small smile, conversation starting to calm his fried nerves. “However, I have to admit, I have been around you and your...friend group. That red beret is certainly an eye catcher, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve seen Tucker take it off all week.”

“I honestly wonder if he even takes it off to shower some days.”

“When he was little? He didn’t.”

“Danny?” 

Tucker’s voice shocking him back into the present, Danny realized he was completely so wrapped up that, you know, _this_ was now a thing he had to deal with it that he didn’t even check on how Tucker was handling seeing the ghost of his Grandmother. How could he be so damn idiotic?

Turning around, Tucker was staring concernedly at Danny - but surprisingly, only Danny. 

“Uh, dude? Are you having a stroke right now? Can ghosts even get strokes? Or did your final brain cell just give out on you?” The question was supposed to be light, but the underlying tone of concern made the joke fall flat.

After turning around multiple times to glance between his best friend and his Mamaw, each time he turned back around Danny would see Tucker looking up at him, getting more concerned and confused as ever. The look Tucker’s Mamaw gave Danny was akin to when she found something they did amusing as kids.

_Maybe I am having a stroke,_ Danny mused to himself, trying to remember if his parents had accidentally spiked anything questionable their family dinners.

Barely reminding being able to pick his still gaping jaw off the ground, Danny shakily swallowed, not daring to take his eyes off the glowing woman in front of him.

“Can you...can you not see…?”

After an uncomfortable beat of Tucker looking at the space to where Danny was staring and mumbling to the past five minutes, Tucker replied back, “The only thing I can see is the notorious Phantom having a breakdown while staring at nothing. Which, I would usually say is a whole mood, but right now you’re really starting to worry me.”

When Danny gave no response back, Tucker gave a not so subtle cough. “Maybe you could, uh, come back down here, and we can figure out what’s going on together?”

Danny gave an earnest look, eyes glowing as bright as a glow stick as he spoke earnestly, “In one second, I promise.”

Without waiting for a response back, Danny slowly floated in front of the spirit. Shakily, she was able to grab his hand, a feat that Danny wasn’t even sure she was capable of. With one strong gust of wind, her form looked like it could disappear in a cloud of smoke into the night. Ever so gently, he squeezed her hand, taking the opportunity to ask, “Is there anyway I can help you?”

She nodded resolutely, the quiet strength he had known from life still present. “I need to leave a message to my Tuck.”

Danny glanced down at said teen who was clearly about to call Sam or Jazz to tell them that he had finally lost it. Danny sighed, an anvil dropping from his too slow heart all the way to his guts. 

“He can’t see you. I’m...so sorry.”

“He can’t,” She agreed, punctuated with a nod of her head. “But you, my dear, can.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tucker has always trusted Danny implicitly, especially when it came to anything and everything in the realm of ghosts. However, after a solid five minutes of the ghost teen gawking at nothing, muttering something Tucker couldn’t make out with a couple he’s thrown in there with the occasional glance now at him, Tucker had quickly and rationally reasoned that this was finally the day that Danny had a breakdown.

Tucker had planned for this kind of situation, but usually how he’s prepared to deal with his common triggers. And at the moment, other than the creepy smoke, there was nothing he could go off of. What was one to do in this situation anyway? Call a ghost therapist? Jazz _could_ be their best bet but that had a chance of backfiring real quick. 

Shaking off his thoughts, Tucker cleared his throat in a last ditch attempt to snap Danny back.

“Earth to Danny? You just going to float up there all night or can you tell me what’s going on?”

Danny whipped around, looking for the world like he had got his hand caught in a cookie jar. 

“Y-yeah, sure.”

He waited a beat looking over his shoulder as if he needed someone else’s affirmative, and floated back down onto the grass. Tucker noticed he wasn’t directly facing him, more angled to the side as if he was including a third person into the conversation.

Before Tucker could say anything about this, Danny quickly spoke first.

“Tucker, I need you to trust me right now, no matter how crazy this might sound at first. Please?”

There were a range of responses that exploded in Tucker’s mind, ranging from _I’m not sure you are in the right mental state to be able to do that right now, bud_ to, _says the floating, possibly possessed, powerful half-ghost.._

What he ended up saying, was nothing more or less of the truth. “I always do.”

Danny nodded, notably squeezing his fists to stop his nervous habit of rubbing his neck. This is serious, then.

Danny cleared throat, looked Tucker dead in the eye, and said, “Your, uh. Your Mamaw is here, with us. Right now. And if it’s okay she has some things she’d like to tell you.” A pause. “And even if you don’t, she says you’re going to hear them anyway.”

The awkward air between them was so thick you could put it with Fright Knight’s sword.

“Danny, I know you’ve hardly been sleeping at night-”

“I’m being serious!”

“-and I know you’re trying to help right now, I truly do-”

“I wouldn’t be joking about this! Besides, I don’t know how much time-”

Tucker took a deep inhale. “Danny. I know you’ve been overworking yourself. I think it’s time for us to go home, get some rest-”

“Aerosmith!”

The silence that followed would’ve have been deafening if not for Tucker’s quick breaths.

“I...what?” There was grief in his eyes, but even more painful was the desperate look of hope. Danny took this as his opportunity to continue.

“She says...you once stayed at the Dells in Wisconsin. And after you found a shower cap in the bathroom you and her shared, you came out with it on and said you were Aerosmith with no context. Not any specific member, just the band.” Danny paused, as if he was waiting to hear someone respond. A beat, and then, “For the rest of the night you couldn’t let anyone get close to you in fear that they’d take it off. It’s where your obsession with berets started.”

Tucker felt his eyes started to water, and the blank space Danny had been staring at had never been more interesting.

Despite the situation, Danny was still able to crack a shaky grin. “Seriously dude?”

“I was five! She swore she’d never tell a soul!” Tucker felt like she should feel embarrassed, but the smile on his face begged to differ. “But I forgive you Mamaw.”

Danny truly grinned then, eyes flitting back and forth between him and the open air. 

Tucker slowly ventured. “Is she...okay?”

Danny opened his mouth like he was going to answer, but quickly shut it and whipped his head around like he was being told off. A few more seconds of silence, and then Danny tried again.

“She says she’s as good as you are, so...pretty crappy, right now.”

Tucker rolled his eyes and snorted as if he was expecting this answer. Danny took this as his invitation to continue.

“She says that she wasn’t in any pain, and that that was the best way for her to go. She had felt like she had truly lived her life to the fullest, and part of that was getting to see you grow up. She...”

Danny stopped to take a breath and then continued, eyes locked onto Tucker with an eyebrow raise or nod to his left every so often.

“She says that you didn’t need to be there to tell her how much you love her, just like she doesn’t need to be here for you to know, either. Your Mamaw...is so proud of you. She knows that whatever you choose to do in life, you will be great. She says...she says that she knows, and that it never mattered to her. She just wants you to be happy, and will always be with you, whether or not you can see her.”

Openly crying now, Tucker was vehemently nodding his head. “Okay..O-okay.”

Danny gave a knowing, almost amused look. “And...you left your PDA charger in Lancer’s class.”

Despite tears freely running down his face, he chuckled to himself and whispered, “You always could find the things I never could, Ma, _hiccup_, Mamaw. I...shit, man.”

Danny tilted his head, raised his eyebrow and asked dryly, “Do you kiss your Grandmother with that mouth?”

Tucker smirked back, having repeated this a thousand times. “No, but I do with my Mamaw.”

He didn’t need Danny to tell him that she would respond _that’s my boy_. The air wrapped around him in a cool embrace, and that was enough for Tucker. That was his whole world.

Tucker sniffled, trying to gain his composure. He addressed Danny directly for the first time since his feet touched the cool grass. “Danny, I-”

Danny shook his head, cutting Tucker off. “I know, Tuck. I know.”

Slowly, Danny wrapped an arm around Tucker. Tucker was surprised for a second, a gesture Danny avoided as Phantom. He never outrightly said it, but Tucker knew it was because it was a reminder of how cold he was, of how not human Danny could be. Quickly recovering, Tucker fully returning the embrace. 

Danny reached out into the air, grounding her spirit one last time. As their hands touched and her feet met the cool grass, a gasp came from his side.

Tucker’s eyes shone, looking more alive and hopeful than he had in over a week. He reached out, and to Danny’s surprise, grabbed his Mamaw’s hand, both wetly uttering back and forth _I love you’s_ and _I know’s. _

They embraced for one last time, his Mamaw breaking away to put a hand on his face and smile. She gently kissed his forehead, and stepped away.

Before either of them had time to process, Tucker’s role model was beaming from the inside out - literally. Her entire being seemed more concrete as she lit up the park surrounding them. Tucker glanced around to see Danny gently floating, eyes shining like gems, white emitting out from all around him too. Like a heartbeat, Mrs. Foley pulsed and floated up and away, form slowly turning to a mist of glimmer before swirling into the darkening evening sky, disappearing to join the sparkling evening stars.

Danny gracelessly fell back to the ground breathing heavily, aura still a bit brighter than usual.

The two friends both stood there, trying to take in the craziness of the last few minutes, heads tilted back into the sky, staring at nothing and yet everything. There was a flash of light next to Tucker and soon Danny Fenton was standing next to him, face slightly scrunched up in concern.

“Tuck? You gonna be okay?”

Tucker gave a wet laugh, smile lighting up the entire park despite being the one that doesn’t glow. “Dude, I’m so much better than okay.” He slapped a hand onto Danny’s back. “Besides,” he added, “my best friend is not only a badass ghost, but can talk to spirits and ghosts alike? You’re practically the girl for The Sixth Sense.”

Later on, Danny would be having an existential crisis in his room, mind playing and replaying the days events in a confusing, terrifying loop. He would worry about what this means for his life moving forward, his powers...the fact that he was truly, partly dead.

But that can wait. If communicating with spirits would get his best friend to smile like that, he’d talk to hundreds of the recently departed. Because when it all comes down to it, there isn’t anything Tucker wouldn’t do for Danny, and nothing Danny wouldn’t do for Tucker.

It’s that thought that calms Danny into a sleepless slumber that night.

**Author's Note:**

> The Aerosmith this was an actual thing my brother did when he was a kid. I wish I could tell you why, but to this day he says he has no clue.
> 
> This is my first DP fic! Please let me know if you enjoyed it, or if you would like to see a series of this.
> 
> Say hi on my Tumblr! < img src https://daydreamersdaybook.tumblr.com/>


End file.
